In learning a new language, one task that a student must master is to pair new vocabulary words from a target language with corresponding words in his native tongue. For example, in learning Spanish, an English speaker must learn to associate the English word "water" with the Spanish word "agua."
Flash cards are a convenient and well known tool to assist the student in memorization of paired material. A flash card comprises a thin piece of cardboard of convenient dimensions which has the material to be memorized on separate sides. For use in learning a new vocabulary, a flash card has on one side a word printed in one language and on the other side the same word translated into another language.
In the usual use of flash cards, the student reads one side of the flash card and then tests himself by thinking of the translation. For example, returning to the hypothetical English speaking student learning Spanish, the student would read the word "water" on one side of the card and mentally test himself by seeing if he remembers the target word "agua." The direction of testing can go both ways, of course. A conscientious student will practice translating from Spanish to English and vice versa. Flash cards frequently have additional information on them. For example, cards with verbs on them frequently have the conjugations of that verb.
The student learning the standard Chinese language, however, has a more difficult learning task. Chinese is not written with the roman alphabet. Rather, Chinese is written with characters, of which there are many thousands. These characters are not phonetic. To make matters more complicated, there are two sets of Chinese characters in common use. The orthodox character set (or "fantizi") has been in use for several thousand years. With the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the government of that nation embarked upon a program to simplify the characters. This second set of characters of simplified characters (or "jiantizi") is widely used in the People's Republic of China while the original fantizi are used in Taiwan and the rest of the world.
In order to assist students in learning and understanding the standard Chinese language, as well as to facilitate the transliteration of Chinese names and places for foreign understanding, the government of the Peoples Republic developed the "pinyin" romanization system. Each word in Chinese has a standard phonetic translation using the letters of the Roman alphabet ("a," "b," etc.). There are other systems for the romanization of the Chinese language, such as the Yale system and the Wade-Giles system. The basic operation is the same. They differ in the choice of letters to represent sounds. For example, the sound represented by an initial "x" in pinyin is represented by the pair of initial letters "hs" in the Wade system.
An English speaking student wishing to learn to speak and read Chinese must therefore learn the pronunciation of the translated word (by pairing the English with the pinyin) as well as learn to pair the English with the orthodox and simplified character, as well as learn to pair these characters with each other, and to pair each with the pinyin pronunciation. There are thus four classes of information to be associated (1) English word, (2) pinyin/phonetic representation, (3) simplified character, and (4) orthodox character.
For this reason, it has been impossible to use regular flash cards to study Chinese conveniently. Flash cards are available, but they have not heretofore permitted the student to test himself in all the necessary tasks. If the card has English on one side and pinyin, simplified and complex characters all on the other (which is common), it does not permit practice in the association of the pronunciation with characters (since both pinyin and characters are on the same side). If one wishes to practice associating the simplified form with the complex this also can not be accomplished because both forms are on the same side.
One solution, a very unsatisfactory one, is to have six sets of flash cards for the six possible pairs to be learned: (English-pinyin), (English-simple character), (English-complex character), (pinyin-simple character), (pinyin-complex character) and (simple character-complex character). This is unsatisfactory for two reasons. The first, of course, is because it requires six sets of cards. The second reason that it is unsatisfactory is because it prevents the rapid association of related information. For example, if the student were to use an (English-complex character) flash card and wanted to refresh his memory on the pronunciation of the word he would have to look it up in a dictionary or search for the related English-pinyin flash card.
In order to overcome these difficulties, I have invented a new and useful "multi-card" to assist in the learning of Chinese. The design of the multi-card is such that it permits four different classes of information to be associated in a single multi-card. As a consequence, the student can learn and test himself on the associations between an English word, the pinyin pronunciation, the orthodox character and the simplified character. Although I invented the multi-card to assist in learning of Chinese, my invention can be used to associate any four domains of interest. For example, it could be used as a tool to help learn or review English, French, Spanish, and German languages.
Other advantages of the invention will become apparant by review of the drawings and discussion.